


The Black Dog

by eating_custardinbed



Series: The Ineffable Husbands deal with angsty shit [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Depression, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Motivational Speech, idk what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-12 18:57:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19580404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eating_custardinbed/pseuds/eating_custardinbed
Summary: Aziraphale isn't having a good time. Crowley wants to help.





	The Black Dog

**Author's Note:**

> Hey!! Some of you may be new, some of you may be old readers. Welcome, whoever you are!  
> The title is reference to Winston Churchill, who often referred to his depression as a "black dog".  
> Hope you enjoy!!

**_London, Soho: 3 months and 4 days since the start of the rest of their lives_ **

It was their one month anniversary, and Aziraphale was honestly surprised that the forces of Heaven and Hell hadn't come for them yet. 

God had blessed them and their relationship. He knew that. That had never stopped Gabriel before, though. If it went against the Divine Plan, the one that was Written, forget ineffability: Gabriel would have half the forces of Heaven on your tail ready to smite you before you could say "please". 

And the angel couldn't even bear to think of Hell. The Netherworld did have a certain reputation for disregarding the rules. They still had the solace of the knowledge that the switching trick had worked. Although they weren't sure how long the wool would remain pulled over their eyes. 

Simply put, Aziraphale was twitchy. That meant no PDA, _no, not even hand holding, Crowley,_ no sneaky kisses stolen in bathrooms, nothing that would suggest they had become anything more than what they used to be before… well, everything happened. 

Oh, and they hadn't had sex. 

Angels are asexual beings. They were created that way. Technically, so were demons, but when they Fell they pretty much disregarded all of the rules, so they really go for that sort of thing these days. Most demons stay traditional, frequenting whore houses and advocating rape and suchforth, but the select few* went just a little bit further and declared themselves gay, or bi, or pan, usually whatever took their fancy on the day. Crowley was gay. 

*Most notably Crowley

Aziraphale was confused. 

It's not like he didn't find Crowley _unattractive._ He knew the demon was extremely physically desirable. He had good cheekbones, and he was tall and handsome, and Aziraphale would be lying if he didn't say he simply adored the demon's gorgeous golden eyes. It was just… he had no _interest_ in sex. Never really had done, to be honest. Oscar Wilde had been an exception. He'd been angry and hurt and frustrated after Crowley had asked for the Holy Water, and Oscar had provided the perfect outlet for that. He'd been rather upset when he'd told him it was over between them. 

So sex was the source of his anxiety right now. Normally it was books, or more specifically people trying to _buy_ his books, or food or the _surely_ inevitable wrath of Heaven that was forthcoming at some point. Today it was sex. Was his abstinence going to scare Crowley away? Would, one day, the demon come into the shop and tell him that it was over, just like Oscar did? Aziraphale could almost see the words forming on Crowley's lips, the gleeful glint that would surely be in the demon's eye when he told him that he was leaving, he had no reason other than pity to hang around the pathetic excuse for an angel that he was. 

Oh dear. 

Crowley, after discovering the self-deprecating trains of thought that Aziraphale's mind often took, had told his angel to call him if he ever found himself spiralling in such a way. Aziraphale had promised wholeheartedly that he would. 

Now, however, he wasn't so sure. 

He glanced at the phone from where he was standing by the mirror in his small bedroom. He'd been examining his outfit for their dinner tonight* but now he felt like he wanted to do nothing more than replace the starchy shirt with its tartan collar with a soft pyjama shirt, and to just lie down on the small, feathery bed and just _sleep._

*The exact same outfit he wore every other night, except with a particularly snazzy purple satin bow-tie. It had been an impulse purchase from Amazon. Sometimes, Aziraphale really wished Crowley hadn't taught him how to use the computer. 

The angel sighed heavily, looking away from the phone and down to the bed. A little nap wouldn't hurt, would it? After all, they weren't going out to dinner for another few hours or so. It wouldn't kill anyone if he just, oh, I don't know, got his head down for a little kip to clear his mind before he went out. 

Yes, that would do nicely. 

_I'll be up by five,_ he told himself. _Plenty of time to get ready before Crowley comes by to pick me up._

Well, no one ever said angels couldn't lie to themselves. 

Four hours later, in a very stylish flat a mile away in Mayfair, a demon was getting very worried indeed. 

Aziraphale had said he would call by noon at the very latest. He’d _promised,_ in fact. Yet here he was, at nearly 3:00 p.m, still without a phone call. Angels didn’t break promises. They just didn’t. It was a fundamental part of their DNA, a major part of their personalities welded into their genes. 

Maybe Aziraphale had forgotten. Crowley scoffed, dismissing the thought almost as soon as it entered his head. Aziraphale never forgot _anything_ , or at least he didn’t when it had something to do with the two of them. 

Kidnapped, then? Stolen away by the forces of Heaven, who had finally figured out the switcharoo and wanted revenge for being humiliated? The demon’s heart seized, but when he checked the little Angel Blinker he had in his head*, the angel was, sure enough, sitting in his little bookshop just a mile away. Walking distance, really. Crowley breathed a sigh of relief. Aziraphale was okay, as far as he could tell. 

*Aziraphale and Crowley had had trackers on each other since the early 1400s. This had come about after Crowley had had a rather nasty run-in with two very keen but very amateur exorcists, and may well have been destroyed entirely by the holy water they’d been brandishing dangerously close to him if it wasn’t for Aziraphale swooping in- literally- at the very last second to save him. It saved time, effort, and very often their lives. 

Still, he should pop over there, shouldn’t he? Wouldn’t hurt. Couldn’t hurt, in fact. Couldn’t hurt at all. Plus he was pretty sure he was getting withdrawal symptoms from being away from his angel for so long. _Yeah,_ he thought, nodding to himself as he swung his legs over the side of the throne and jumped up gracefully, his lithe body curving into a shape that should’ve been impossible to achieve. _I’ll nip over, check he’s alright, maybe steal a kiss behind closed curtains…_

He shook his head, pulling his jacket on. No. If Aziraphale wasn’t ready yet, then he simply wasn’t ready. Crowley wasn’t going to force him, or make him do something that he was uncomfortable with. He was a demon, but he wasn’t a shitbag. He didn’t do that, wouldn’t _ever_ do that. Especially not to Aziraphale. 

Grabbing the keys to his beloved Bentley, he walked out of the door to his minimalist apartment, glaring at his plants as he avoided the ugly brown stain of the stone floor where Ligur had met his unfortunate end. Shitbag. He deserved everything he got. He didn’t bother to lock the door. No-one who broke in tended to last long enough to actually steal anything anyway. 

It was true that Aziraphale’s bookshop was within walking distance. It was also true that Crowley was lazy and liked speeding down Brewer’s Street. He couldn’t do that without the Bentley, could he? His pride and joy and, dare he say, his baby. He’d been secretly very pleased when Adam had restored it. 

When he got in the car, his fingers were crossed as he reached haphazardly across the seat for the new CD he’d bought nearly a fortnight ago. The album cover proudly proclaimed _‘Adele- 25’*_. Crowley screwed his eyes shut as he inserted the disk and started the ignition. 

*Yes, Crowley listens to Adele. What!? Can’t a demon listen to Adele once in a while!? I’ll smite you all, you know. That’s right, stay scared.

The familiar strains of _‘Another One Bites the Dust’_ began to reverberate around the car. 

The demon shrugged as he pulled away from the kerb, immediately speeding up to somewhere around a very tame seventy miles an hour. 

Aziraphale was fine, right? Right? 

It was at times like this when Crowley felt incredibly lonely. Not necessarily alone, as such, but just… lonely. Like right now, there was no-one to reassure him that the angel was just fine, and the horrible scenarios that were running rampage through his mind were just a product of his overactive imagination. There were no sounds in the car other than the engine, the slight hiss in his breathing and the crooning of Freddie Mercury and Co. bellowing through the speakers. 

Crowley had tried to have human friends, once upon a time. He couldn't manage it. Not only was it far too bothersome to try and explain why he wasn't aging to them, he always had to live with the knowledge that, one day, they were going to die without him, and they'd probably go to Heaven and Crowley would never see them again. The demon could hardly bear the Thought of getting attached to someone only for them to go and do something like that. 

In a way, that's why he'd become so attached to Aziraphale, the only familiar and consistent face that had been around for the past six thousand years. Humans are temporary, but angels are forever. 

At least, he hoped so. 

Since he was doing seventy, it took Crowley all of 52 seconds to reach the bookshop. He grinned when he screeched into a parking space just outside of the shop, the double yellow lines obediently pulling back for him. 

The bookshop was still standing. No hellfire. No metre-high flames licking at the Victorian paintwork. No acrid smell of burning bubbling leather. 

And yet still no angel sitting and reading behind the counter. 

Crowley squinted as he tried to see through the grimy glass panels on the front door of the bookshop. The sign proclaimed that the shop was closed, and from the outside, that seemed just it. All the lights inside were off, the shutters on the side window pulled down. However, when Crowley tried the door, he found no resistance.

Unlocked? Aziraphale never left the door unlocked. He’d explained why to Crowley once, during a long-forgotten drunken conversation. Something about air humidity and old pages and _some buggering human- you know I love them, my dear boy, but they really are the most infernally curious things- will come along, open it up and ruin the entire temperature control I have going!_ Crowley had been too drunk to question this. 

Now, though, he wished he had as he ventured through the bookstore. It was eerily quiet, almost as if the place was somewhere to be admired from afar, not lived in. Crowley hated it. That’s how his apartment was supposed to feel because if he was being truly honest, that’s what it was. Aziraphale’s place was supposed to be homely, comforting. It always had been before, but it had disappeared. Well, not exactly disappeared, but reduced to almost undetectable levels. 

_Oh, that stupid angel,_ Crowley thought. 

He took the stairs three at a time. The forked tongue was making a comeback, flicking out and tasting the air, searching for the angel. He was normally locatable within two or three seconds, but today it was proving difficult. Now on the landing, the demon looked backwards and forwards in desperation. In his mental map of the world, the bookshop was throbbing like a migraine: Aziraphale was definitely here, definitely alive. Whereabouts in the bookshop, however, was a complete mystery. 

At least, it was until he heard the muffled sobbing from the bedroom. 

Now, Crowley knew that Aziraphale, before the Armaged-didn’t, seldom used the bedroom for the purpose it was created for. Yes, the angel found it a relaxing place to curl up with a good book every so often, but other than that, the room had remained virtually unused for years. That was up until a few months ago. 

Crowley inched towards the door with almost nervous trepidation. The sounds of crying seemed to amplify ten times with every step he took. The demon bit the inside of his cheek as so not to make a sound that would alert the bedroom’s occupant to his presence. He really, _really_ hoped it wasn’t Aziraphale. 

Deep down, he knew he was hoping for something impossible. 

It didn’t take long for Crowley’s resolve to break. _“Not long”_ actually transpired to be about a minute and a half. This sudden break in a usually solid resolve came about when he heard a very small, very broken and very angelic voice murmur, 

“Please, just take me back! Whatever I did, I’m sorry. I can be better. I can be better if you want me to be.” 

Oh no, this wouldn’t do at all! Aziraphale, the sweetest and most loving angel there was, thought himself lesser? Crowley shook his head, disgusted. No, this wasn’t right. Angels were, on the whole and for the want of a better word, a bunch of twat-arsed wankers. Not Aziraphale, of course. Aziraphale was The Exception, capital letters. 

He burst into the bedroom. He had to stop this. He _had_ to. It was his duty! He opened his mouth to say something, _anything_ , but then he clapped eyes on his angel. 

The Guard of the Eastern Gate was in a deplorable state. His cheeks were stained with tear tracks, and his eyes were red and puffy from where he’d been rubbing them, trying to wipe away the tears. His tartan pyjamas were rumpled, like he’d been tossing and turning trying to get comfortable for hours. He was sniffing slightly, and he barely raised his eyes to the demon. 

Said demon froze as a noise that sounded a little like _“flibbertigibbet”_ came out of his mouth. He’d never seen Aziraphale like this. Ever. Even in 1889. It wasn’t anything like this. 

“‘Z-Zira?” he stammered after a few moments of silence. Aziraphale raised his eyes to him. 

“I’m fine,” were the first words out of his mouth. 

Ice broken, Crowley rolled his eyes. 

“You’re a damn awful liar, angel,” he replied. 

“You don’t need to worry.” 

“Well, clearly I do.” 

“Crowley-” 

“You can’t just mope around, angel,” Crowley said. Aziraphale fell quiet, almost guiltily. “You have to let me in.” 

“Why?” asked Aziraphale. There was a hint of sullenness to his voice. 

“Because otherwise you’ll be all alone in _here_ ,” the demon said, coming over and tapping the bookseller gently on the head, “and you won’t be able to use this world for what it was created for. 

Crowley sighed, and then snapped his fingers. 

Aziraphale looked down in surprise. The tartan pyjamas were gone, replaced by his usual suit and cream jacket. The two of them were standing on a stone step overlooking a garden. The garden was flooded, the water about up to the angel's waist. Crowley miracled a boat and gestured to Aziraphale to get in. They floated along the garden until they reached a patch of dry grass. On it, an old lady sat on a lawn chair, a cocktail on the table in front of her. 

"What do you see?" Crowley asked simply. 

"Um," Aziraphale stammered, confused. He took a breath. "A plastic chair, a garden table…?" 

"No, angel," the demon groaned. "Not the things! Things are just that: things, objects, inanimate. Objects provide a temporary relief, a small grounding to let you know you're still here, you're still alive." 

As the woman reached forward to pick up her drink, another woman popped her head over the fence, waving excitedly. She had a huge smile on her face, and the minute the first woman saw her, her face lit up and she waved back. "But it's the people that remind you that you're human," Crowley said. 

Another old lady was leaning out of the window. She grinned at Crowley as if she recognised him and waved. The demon waved back, flashing her a rare and genuine smile. She turned around, leaning over and cheekily flashed them her bloomers. Aziraphale blushed a little, but Crowley laughed. 

"But we're not human," Aziraphale pointed out once the woman had gone back inside. "We're ethereal." 

"Yeah," Crowley replied, steering the boat towards the fence. "But look what the angels did! Marched around this place inventing Capitalism and gender specification and homophobia. And you know what!?" he added, jumping up. Aziraphale shook his head timidly. "They did it all one by one, alone! Humans…" 

He laughed and clicked his fingers again. 

They were now outside of a school, which was surrounded by a tall black metal fence. Children were hanging gleefully off of the fence. Crowley walked through the entrance and Aziraphale followed, intrigued. The main doors to the school building flung open of their own accord and they walked through the corridors. A small boy was struggling to reach his coat on the high peg, and a small girl offered him her hand. He took it gratefully, hoisting himself up to reach the peg.

“Humans now teach their offspring from an early age that working together, actually _listening_ to one another will help you succeed in life!” 

Crowley’s voice lowered as they came to stand outside a classroom. When they peered through the strip of glass in the window, they could that the majority of the class had their hands up. 

“And you know what’s even better?” the demon exclaimed quietly. “They _encourage_ questions! They tell these kids to be curious and to ask as many questions as possible, and if they do, they can change the world. And you know what? It works!” 

Aziraphale arched an eyebrow. 

“Yes,” he said critically. “But most people don’t make ground-breaking discoveries or inventions.” 

Crowley rolled his eyes in the most dramatic way possible. Why was his angel being such a Pessimistic Peter today? 

“I never said the _whole_ world, angel,” he replied. “Just one person’s, maybe. You know how…” 

He clicked his fingers. The school was gone, and they were sitting on hard fake-plastic bench in a supermarket. Crowley pointed a cashier, a particularly jubilant-looking young man. “That man used to be homeless. Two kids spent the last of their money and gave him a small packet of crisps. Nothing major. A miniscule act of kindness, right?”

Aziraphale nodded. He was gazing at Crowley almost lovingly. 

“But it changed his world,” the demon continued, oblivious. “Because when those two kids did that, other people started copying them, working together in a chain of kind acts that lead to the total transformation of his life.” 

The demon stretched out a little more, and the two fell into a comfortable silence for a few minutes as they watched the normal everyday shoppers. 

“It’s just things like that, really,” Crowley said quietly after a while. “The intern who asked one too many questions and uncovered the fraudulent activity at one of the biggest companies in the country. The guy who performed CPR on someone he’d never met when they collapsed in the street. The husband who bought his partner flowers when he knew they’d had a bad day at work. Just like evil, kindness spreads, angel.” 

“Perhaps,” Aziraphale conceded. “But there is so much bad in the world!” 

Crowley shrugged and said, “Well, that wasn’t me. I haven’t done anything remotely close to what Hell would consider evil since the sixth century.” 

Aziraphale turned to him, astonished. 

“Really?” 

Crowley shrugged again. 

“Yeah, I found I quite like humanity,” he said. “And yeah, I’ll admit there’s problems, but what are the humans doing? What are the humans doing?” 

Images began to flick in front of their eyes, images of various protests varying from the early LGBTQ+ rights campaigns through to the more recent Extinction Rebellion marches. 

“Going on marches?” Aziraphale ventured, confused. 

“Coming together!” Crowley answered. “They are joining forces to fight for what’s right for them, and for what’s right for the planet. Many of them completely without religion and doing it out of the goodwill of their own hearts.” The demon grinned, sitting up a little more. “I love the ones without religion. I always get a distinct feeling with some people that they’re only doing good things because they think there’s a Magic Man in the sky who’s totting up their points ready to let them into the Silver City! I don’t like that: I like the ones that are actually good, truly good.” 

Aziraphale took a moment to consider this. 

“That’s all well and good, my dear,” he eventually said. “But what exactly is your point?” 

“My point!?” Crowley spluttered. They were back in the bookshop, and so were Aziraphale’s tartan pyjamas and his tear stains. “My point is you can’t stay holed up in your bookshop with your head buried in some eighteenth-century romance novel pretending that there isn’t an entire planet out there! A planet that needs your beautiful angelic presence!” 

There was a pause. Crowley came over and sat down on the bed next to Aziraphale, who was sniffing in that sort of pre-sob way. “Who knows how long we can stay on this earth?” He smiled sadly, reaching over and pressing a kiss to the angel’s lips. “Best savour it whilst we can.” 

“But why don’t-” Aziraphale’s voice broke, and he had to stop for a moment to collect himself. “Why don’t they want me?” 

“Because they’re idiots who don’t realise how incredible you are,” Crowley responded quickly. Aziraphale made a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sob. “You don’t need them, angel.” 

“Why not?” 

“Because you have me now.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. No, I don't know what's going on either: the whole speech is based off a dream I had and wrote down the moment I woke up. Sorry it's so short, but please remember to leave comments and kudos xx


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